Companionable Silence
by AstroGirl
Summary: The Ninth Doctor and Jabe share a quiet moment. An AU in which her fate in 'The End of the World' was different.


**Companionable Silence  
by AstroGirl**

No mortal being can keep going at top speed forever, and, no matter how reluctant he is to admit it, the Doctor is no exception. He's been even more restless than usual these days, desperate for action and distraction, for novel experiences, for useful things to do. But at last he is beginning to feel... not tired, exactly, but conscious of the need to be somewhere quiet, just for a while.

He drops Rose off at her mother's flat with a promise to reappear for her in a few days' time -- her time, of course, though he thinks she's possibly got the impression that he intends to spend no more than a few minutes of his own. It doesn't really matter. He's got plenty of minutes to spare.

She hesitates in the doorway and smiles at him, and he knows her well enough by now to read in her expression what she won't say: that she wishes he'd stay here with her instead. Something inside him is almost tempted, but, no. He doesn't think he could bear it, sitting in that tiny flat for days, having nice domestic teas and listening to Jackie's gossip. That isn't the kind of quiet that he needs.

He bids Rose goodbye, returns to the TARDIS, and sets the coordinates for the Forest of Cheem.

He doesn't quite know why he picked this particular place, except that it's peaceful, and ancient, and very far from Earth. And his last conversation with Jabe, before he left her behind on Platform One, has been crossing his mind lately. There'd been such obvious love in her voice when she'd described her home, when she'd invited him to come and see it some day... He always says "maybe" to those kinds of invitations, or "I'd like that," and he always knows that he'll probably never follow through.

Well, once in a while, it's good to make an exception. He'd hate to be predictable.

His first thought as he steps out of the TARDIS is that Jabe was absolutely right; this is a beautiful place. When you're running about saving the universe, this is the kind of place it's good to think that you're saving it _for_. All around him trees -- the non-sentient type -- stretch upward to the sky, a canopy of leaves in a hundred shades of green filtering the warm yellow sunlight into shifting patterns of light and shade. The air tastes of chlorophyll and fertile soil. Except for the soft rustling of leaves and the distant cries of birds, the Forest is as quiet as eternity. The Doctor closes his eyes for a moment, breathing it all in, opening himself up to peace. For a few moments, his mind is blank and his hearts feel strangely free and light.

It doesn't last. There's that nagging voice in the back of his head, as always, urging him not to be still. Telling him to stop standing here and instead find something to _do_. He opens his eyes again and makes a small sound of frustration. It comes out disturbingly like a sob.

Suddenly, he's aware of another sound. Footsteps. Someone is moving towards him though the forest.

He hasn't deliberately come here looking for her, but somehow he's not surprised when she steps out of the dappled shadows. After all, he's no stranger to coincidences. "Hello, Jabe," he says, putting on a bright smile with only a little effort.

She stops, framed between the trunks of two taller, less mobile trees. Sunlight spills across her face, revealing an expression of astonished recognition. "_Doctor?_"

"Yup! Fancy meeting you here! Well, no, what am I saying? Fancy meeting _me_ here, really. I mean, this is your home, isn't it? I'm just visitin'. The invitation still stands, I hope?"

She laughs, a sound like rustling leaves and splashing water. "Of course." She steps forward, holding out a hand for him to take. "Although I must say I expected you to call at my residence, not to meet you at random in the middle of the forest."

Her hand is cool in his, as smooth as polished wood and soft as flesh. It's been several years for her since they last met, if he remembers the coordinates right, but she hasn't changed. A few more autumn-colored leaves atop her head, perhaps, but otherwise time has barely touched her. Trees age almost as slowly as Time Lords. Possibly more slowly than the kind who live active, difficult lives. Which, it occurs to him, is the only kind that's left. "Actually," he says, "It was the forest I came to see."

A flash of humor glints in her eyes. "Should I be insulted?"

"Nah. You're part of it, aren't you?" He smiles at her and squeezes her hand before he lets it go.

She returns the smile. "Yes," she says. "Yes, I suppose I am." She takes his hand back. "Come and sit?" She leads him gently to a mossy rock, and he settles down beside her.

"I like to come out here when I can," she says. "I spend so much time on business... It seems I'm always either at home, where everything is so carefully-shaped and tame, or off-world, among the metal cities." She draws in a deep breath of the summer-scented air. "It's good to walk in the sort of place my ancestors grew in." She reaches out to stroke the bark of the nearest tree. "To connect with my roots, so to speak."

The Doctor swallows down a pang of emotion and covers it with a smile. "Yeah," he says. "I imagine that is nice."

"Oh," she says, apparently hearing the things he hasn't said. "I am sorry."

He normally dislikes being the object of sympathy, especially over... that. It's usually awkward and embarrassing for everyone concerned. But Jabe simply covers his hand with hers, offering him a kind silence, just as she did on Platform One. He finds himself grateful, and the feeling makes him say more than he otherwise might.

"It's all right. They say you don't miss what you never had. To tell the truth, I don't think I ever did have that, not really. Not even back on--" But he's felt an almost superstitious reluctance of late to say the planet's name, and he isn't quite ready to put that aside just yet. "--Where I came from. Well, maybe once or twice. But not for a very long time." He can remember, distantly, a hillside, a hermit, a flower... a feeling of meditative completeness. But that was lifetimes ago, and it's a feeling he's never quite been able to recapture since. On the whole, Gallifrey had never seemed like somewhere he'd truly belonged, and the peace and silence to be found there had always felt stagnant, rather than still.

She doesn't say she's sorry, not again, only squeezes his hand a little. He feels grateful for that, too.

They sit together for a while in silence. The Doctor watches a bird flitting above them, feathers gleaming in brilliant shades of gold and red as they catch the sun, another hopping through the underbrush in search of food. Pretty little things going about their simple, harmless lives.

"This is a good place," he says at last. "It's nice." The words seem inane, unworthy of him, but they're warm, and honestly meant, and he can see from Jabe's answering smile that she can tell. Interesting how nearly universal these things are: a smile, a frown, the feeling of friendship expressed with a handclasp or a warm expression in the eyes. It's a kind of kinship itself, independent of planetary origin or DNA.

"Close your eyes," she says. "That's the best way, I've found. Sit still, and close your eyes, and _feel_." She closes her own and goes as still as the rooted trees around them, save for the leaves that crown her head, moving in time with the wind.

He closes his and tries to join her, tries to think of nothing but the birds and the wind and the beating of his hearts. He was taught to meditate once, to bring this sort of calmness inside him, but it's been a very long time.

It doesn't last long before his hand twitches at a random thought, at some half-formed, half-sensed anxiety, and his eyes flick open as if he's expecting to see an enemy or an opportunity looming above him. But there's only the forest, and Jabe still sitting calmly beside him. "Close your eyes," she says again, amused, without opening hers.

He laughs and does so, and this time he decides not to try. Instead, he just _breathes_. Rich, warm air flows into him, out, and in again. Slowly he becomes aware of the sound of Jabe breathing next to him, her respiratory rhythms very nearly in synch with his own. He imagines carbon dioxide flowing from him to her, oxygen flowing from her to him, in a cycle nearly as old as life itself. His breaths deepen, his heartbeats slow, and, as she told him to do, he _feels_. He feels the planet turning, slow and steady, feels gravity holding him in its embrace. He feels the movement of a butterfly's wings and the gentle breeze it creates on the other side of the world. He feels time moving past him, as he always does, but for once he feels no urge to go racing after it.

The sun is on the horizon when at last they open their eyes, and the sky is painted in the same red and gold as the birds.

"I'll have to go soon," Jabe says, sounding somehow both regretful and content.

"It was a good visit," says the Doctor softly. He doesn't think he's meant anything more sincerely in his lives. Jabe simply smiles at him as he hugs her goodbye. There isn't anything more that needs to be said in words.

When he returns for Rose, he sets the coordinates a little early and lets Jackie feed him a meal. Her earthy, earthly chatter falls like raindrops into the temporary stillness of his mind. Underneath it, he can hear the echo of rustling leaves and the song of birds.


End file.
